Currently viewing the tag: "family"
I listened again recently to a message I heard from Doug Phillips within the last couple of days about, “The History of the Sunday School Movement.”
I was reminded about how our children are our disciples whether we know it or not. They are mini portraits of our lives. You and I are always discipling.
This wasn’t expressly what the message was about, but it reminded me of how discipling involves how we live with our children, walk with them, talk with them, play with them, and work with them. Discipling is the biblical form of education that involves daily living in close relationships with those whom you are discipling.
I then had to judge myself and ask whether I am discipling my children toward God, or toward myself.
I forget sometimes that what I’m working toward is the same thing that Jesus worked toward throughout His 3 years of ministry with His disciples. In John 15:15, Jesus says to His disciples,
“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
From Deuteronomy 6 to Acts 6, God’s method of education has not changed. That’s our jobs as parents right? To make known to our children what we have heard from God.
I look forward to the day when my kids are no longer my disciples, but are Christ’s disciples. And I also look forward to the day when they will be my deepest friends, and not just my kids.
Even now, God is giving us glimpses of this in Arwen’s life. We can sit and talk with her about some of life’s deepest issues, and I know that her heart belongs to me. That’s the key to discipleship versus classroom based education.
She has my heart too.
(That’s my girl holding an axe after she helped me break up some old wood we needed to get rid of.) She’s also sitting beside me proofreading this post right now. 
Last Saturday, we had our yard sale for this year. We had a grill, a broken Xbox 360, and a bunch of kid riding toys to sell, and then everything else…
The kids of course were excited. Anything that’s out of the ordinary like that makes their day.
I started off the day getting McDonald’s for me and the kids. Missi only wanted a coffee drink. Apparently, we’ve trained our kids well. As they ate, they got really disgusted with the food they were eating. Most of that food went to waste.
We gave the kids a way to make money by selling baked cookies (Nestle) and Milo’s sweet tea: one 5 oz. cup of tea for 25 cents or a plastic baggy with 2 cookies for 25 cents.
Arwen is our persistent sales girl. As soon as people could get out of their cars, she was asking them if they wanted cookies or sweet tea. It was a good time to teach her how to get someone’s attention, ask them one time, and then wait for a response.
She didn’t get disappointed if people turned her down, but she did get upset once when a lady said she’d by something (just to shut her up I think), and then didn’t.
Charis managed to dig out an old Eeyore doll that had been buried in a yard sale box, and carry it around like it was her favorite to ever. Of course, we then couldn’t sell it.
Overall, we did well. Our main objective was to get rid of a lot of excess stuff we had, and second, make a little money while doing it. For the day, we cashed in a whopping $100. I’d say that’s a successful yard sale for this year.
I’m figuring this out as I go, but I decided a couple months ago, that I wanted our family to do something active to learn more about our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ, and find ways that we can help.
My interest has mainly been toward those in Sudan. We’ve given to a ministry called Persecution Project Foundation over the course of the last couple years. They do a lot of work trying to bring relief to those in need, as well as actively share the Gospel with those who need to hear it.
So, I’m coming up with a plan, as I go. I’m going to focus on educating my family on Sudan, and the conflict there, and then we’re going to find ways to raise money and awareness for what’s going on there. I started this week with a trip to the library where I found a book on Sudan.
It’s slow progress trying to teach kids who are 4 and 5, about things like “civil war,” “refugees,” and “genocide.” Their little brains struggle with trying to wrap themselves around these concepts. Our children know nothing of the suffering that these people go through.
I spent yesterday and today just trying to introduce them to some basic geography, terms, and ideas about what we’ll be learning about.
Our first project, was for them to draw a picture of the Sudanese flag. They did well, and so far are paying attention throughout. My goal is to figure out how God can best use us to help His Kingdom.
Traditionally, I haven’t been very good with special occasions for my wife. She enjoys going all out for family and friends on special occasions, and me being a very thoughtful and romantic member of the male species ought to have picked up on that sooner than 7 years into our marriage, right?
Well, I finally got it right this year, but it took all of male mind to wrap myself around trying to throw a big birthday bash for my wife.
Since most of our closest friends and family are in Atlanta, I planned a trip to Atlanta (Jonesboro to be exact, her parents house) the weekend BEFORE her birthday. It was no good trying to hide that I was planning SOMETHING, but with my track record, she probably knew she couldn’t expect much.
Me and mom-in-law, worked out plans for a Mexican fiesta themed birthday party! We would order decorations, make Mexican food, and do Mexican things!
On Saturday, April 24th, I sent her away with mom-in-law for some shopping around 10 or 11am. Then, I commenced with my plan.
(That yellow sombrero you see in the middle of the table, is an inflatable cooler for drinks!)
We put up cheap effigies of Mexican dancers and musicians, hung up signs saying “Fiesta,” got out our sombreros, our cheap “Fiesta” themed plates and napkins, and filled our pinata. I got our kids involved in helping out too.
I had everything planned out, and shortly after my parents arrived, Missi and mom-in-law were back. Missi was greeted with her own sombrero, and special blinking jalapeno necklace.
Of course we sang “Happy Birthday” in Mexican too!
While everyone was visiting, Missi’s dad and I moved into the kitchen to make some “margaritas” (just fruit punch and ice for all you baptists out there - ). They were very tasty.
After this, I had Missi play a lively game of Bobbing for Apples.
Then she had to destroy the pinata!
Then we settled down for a delicious chicken quesadilla lunch, after which, we settled for American cake and ice cream (this cake was from Whole Foods of course).
Then she opened presents. My gift for her this year was the party, and a couple of cast iron pans.
Oh, and I did let her keep the sombrero and necklace…
Last Saturday, I received a tip from Gary North’s Tip of the week , that had a video link in it about helping your kids become entrepreneurs: Why you should, and some tips on how to do it. Below is the video (This video does contain a little swearing and talk of alcohol.)
The speaker in the video introduced me to a great idea for helping to teach my kids to think creatively, and to help train them to look for opportunities to make money (i.e. entrepreneurs).
He advised to tell your children to look for things they can do around the house, business, etc. that need to be done. Then, approach him with the desire to do it, as well as a price. They negotiate the price for the task, and the child does it. They then receive money for the task.
So, I approached Arwen, my oldest at 5 years old, and told her this idea. She immediately started looking for something that needed to be done. What did she pick? She chose to help de-weed our flower bed around the back of the house.
I then asked her what she’d charge me to do it. She said that she’d do it for $0.60. I agreed! I also promised the same to Charis (my 4 year old) if she helped.
Arwen then spent the next hour and a half, tirelessly picking out weeds and grass in our flower beds.
She did a great job! She didn’t get done, but she had quite a bit of work to show for her effort.
Charis helped some too, but she kept getting distracted. She did help with the cleanup.
All in all, I’m excited about using this new advice with helping my children become entrepreneurs. I want nothing more than for my children to go so much farther, and learn so much more than me when it comes to business. I think this will help build the skills they need to do just that.
The girls and grandpa are working on planting their seeds.
Here’s Ezra in his underwear, eating his breakfast, and reading an Oriental Trading magazine.
Mamma, workin’ hard in the garden!
My beautiful wife and baby girl, Evelyn, cuddlin’ on the couch…
Arwen is reading to Ezra in the big chair in their room.
Charis holds up her favorite… cheese pizza!
Today, I went with my fellow team leaders from work for a community service project. We went out to Pinson, AL, to help out the Freshwater Land Trust clean up some land.
Notice the trailer park in the background...
This was some stonework done by the previous owners of the property.
We left our store around 8:15 this morning, and arrived in Pinson around 9:00, to meet our guide for the day. He took us out through the land we were on, and showed us the vision they had for the land we were going to be working on. Right now, it is a property overgrown with a plant called privet.
Privet is like kudzu in its tendencies to be really annoying and take over everything. There land was covered in it.
So our major projects for the day, were to plant some trees, and get rid of as much privet as possible. Easier said than done.. but with 14 people helping, we were able to get a lot accomplished.
We worked ’til lunch time, and then went over to the Turkey Creek Nature Preserve. The park was closed, but we had a special privelege to go eat there while the park was closed. They took us to this place called “The Falls” where we got our sack lunches, and ate on top of a ginormous rock overlooking some beautiful water rapids!
That big rock on the left is the one.
The view from the top.
After lunch, our guide showed us an old Civil War site where a Southern blacksmith lived. Supposedly, he was helping the Confederate army, when the Union came through and burned down his house.
Next, we came back to the land where we were shown an area where some beavers had created a damn in the springs.
We then went back to cutting more privet, til we couldn’t stand cutting privet no more.
I came home in time for Missi to leave to go to Joann Fabrics with the baby to get some fabric for some furniture. So, I decided that despite being sore and dirty, it would be a great time to get some work done in the yard.
I watered our garden, helped dig some trenching on the property behind ours to help out our yard when it rains, I filled in some areas of our yard (particularly along the side of the house) that had sunk pretty deep because of sitting water.
Arwen helped me with this.
And finally, we got some old Whole Foods paper bags, and picked up some trash from the construction sites which had blown onto the property behind ours.
I’m going to be sore tomorrow.
Two heads are better than one, but up to now, my wife’s head has been the main one building what is now becoming our family business. I have only been minimally involved with what my wife has done such a wonderful, and diligent job building for the last 4 years, her soap business, Cheeky Maiden Soap Company.
I’ve slowly increased my help and involvement by helping her build our website, lift a few things occasionally, help with ideas, and help keep track of finances for the business. I always said that making soap would just not interest me…
But I recently decided that if we we’re going to build this thing big like we would like, then I would have to be involved more in actually helping to make our soap. My wife is just not physically capable of making the volume of soap that we would need to make.
So… we’ve now become a full fledged team! Tuesday, we made 18 logs of soap (or 360 bars) together. On her own, she could normally make only 9 logs.
Our business is drawing us closer together than ever.
Our plans to grow our business would not be possible outside of our teamwork. We’re also trying to homeschool our kids at the same time, so we need each other now more than ever.
Here’s some pics from our day:
Our kids have been acting strange lately. This winter has lasted longer than normal, and their little minds can’t stand being trapped inside.
So what do they do? They start doing weird stuff…
That’s a stuffed pig behind him…
One of the things my kids love to do, is go “explorin.” What that means, is that they want to go play in the giant disaster area that is the rest of what was supposed to be a 300+ subdivision. The builder had gone bankrupt shortly after we bought our house, and had only built 12 houses up to then.
Lesson: Don’t buy a new home, in such a new subdivision.
Anyway, we went a little farther than we had ever gone the other day, and this is what we found:
A mini version of the Grand Canyon in our backyard! That’s Arwen down there.
Here’s some other pics from our exploration.
Kids need to play outdoors. It’s good for their souls…
Having a family as big as ours, and with my wife and I being as young as we are, we often get asked, “How many more kids are you going to have?”
Our reply is something like, “As many as God will give us.” I think that this is a good response. Our heart is not to have a particular number that we shoot for, but at the same time, we want to communicate our willingness and openness to God for however many children He would like for us to have. This answer communicates both.
We want it to be a testimony to God’s blessings, and what His blessings look like.
A couple of months ago, my wife had been struggling with still believing this vision that we have. With some rough spots in our marriage, it was tough for her to continue to have faith that we were seeing things the correct way.
So, to help her out, I got out my Bible and my white board!
I shared with her two things: 1. what the Bible says, and 2. I crunched some numbers for her on the historical impact we could make. I’ll start with the numbers since most people won’t be as interested in our biblical reasons for a large family.
I broke down for her in a nice clean table format on my white board, what the possible historical ramifications could be of us sticking to our plan. I showed her first, what things would look like if we had no more children. I assumed that our children would believe similarly and all average around 3.5 children. The first column is how many children would be birthed in that generation, and the second reflects our total descendants up to that generation.
| Generation | # of kids | Total Descendants |
| Kids | 4 | 4 |
| Grandkids | 14 | 18 |
| Great grandkids | 49 | 67 |
| Great Great grandkids | 172 | 239 |
So, she said that seemed pretty good to her, and I agreed. 239 descendants after 4 generations is really good, and far above what most people are doing nowadays.
But… what if we allowed God to give us more… From here I showed her what things would look like if we had 8 children and what it would look like with 12 children (still assuming our children are only having 3.5 children).
| Generation | # of kids | Total Descendants | # of kids | Total Descendants |
| Kids | 8 | 8 | 12 | 12 |
| Grandkids | 28 | 36 | 42 | 54 |
| Great grandkids | 98 | 134 | 147 | 201 |
| Great Great grandkids | 343 | 477 | 514 | 715 |
Check that out! 715 descendants after 4 generations! What a chance to make an impact on the world!
She had to concede that 715 to 239 descendants was quite a difference. Lastly, I showed her the generational impact that the average American family has. They say that the typical American family has 1.5 children. So here’s what that looks like after 4 generations.
| Generation | # of kids | Total Descendants |
| Kids | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Grandkids | 3 | 4.5 |
| Great grandkids | 4.5 | 9 |
| Great Great grandkids | 6.75 | 15.75 |
That’s a very small family reunion! After 4 generations, all they have made our 16 descendants!
This is why God blesses the godly with many children (if they’re willing to accept them). Most unbelievers do not want many children.
“But…” you may say, “if God is really sovereign, and if He really wants me to have children, he’ll override all measures of birth control I’m using, and give me a child.” Yes, he could, but that’s not the point.
Psalm 128:1-4 says,
1 Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD,
who walks in his ways!
2You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.3Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
4Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the LORD.
God wants righteous people who are willing to open their homes to His blessings and gifts!
That means God wants people of faith in which to pour out the blessings of many children. Of course, God would not want to give more kids to those families who do not want them! They are a gift! And lots of them are a reward for righteousness and fearing the Lord. If even a Christian family seeks to avoid many children, then their impact on future generations will be as shallow as their vision!
Below is the rest of my biblical argument to her.
Part of my Biblical Argument
Psalm 127 starts out with this:
1Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
I had always looked at the latter part of this psalm about children being like arrows and all of that, but it doesn’t make sense outside of the first two verses. Solomon is expressing God’s dominion and sovereignty over our family, over our city or civil government, and over our very work!
These are all things that he says we cannot do on our own. The word for “house” in vs. 1, is the same word used in passages referring to the “house of David,” and is referring to a man’s lineage! Unless the Lord builds it, men labor in vain to plan their lineage!
If having children is akin to “building one’s house,” then how can we do that outside of His sovereignty? If we choose to “build our house” as we see fit, are we building in vain?
Children as Gifts
From the very beginning of the Bible, children are considered blessings. Genesis 33:5 says,
5And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, “Who are these with you?” Jacob said, ”The children whom God has graciously given your servant.”
The patriarchs of our faith knew that all children are literally gifts from God! A gift is not something that you simply choose at will. By the time you’re ready to “choose” the gift of children, you may not have any choice left!
The Blessing of Many Children
“Quiverfull” families are sometimes quick to say that non-quiverful families do not really see their children as blessings, but this is not really the crux of the argument. Both sides do see children themselves as blessings, and will admit that they’re gifts.
The real crux of the matter, is whether having many children is a blessing. It’s a question of quantity as well as quality. When God blesses He gives both. He gives a good thing, and He gives it in abundance.
Joshua 24:3 says,
3 Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac.
God multiplied Abraham’s descendants, not Abraham. We see God again being sovereign. Abraham’s blessing wasn’t accounted in the number of children that Abraham himself had, because he only had Isaac. But his descendants were multiplied like the stars of the heavens, or the sand on the shore.
Deuteronomy 7:13 says,
13He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.
By putting children in the same breath as material blessings, this verse shows that the “fruit of the womb” is a blessing that is not up to us to manage the increase of. Just as you would not ask God for less grain, cattle, flocks, or land, so we should not think that having children is something that we are responsible for managing the quantity of, for all of it is a gift and blessing of God.
Our faithfulness to God, results in plenty of material wealth to be enjoyed now, but also in a a strong impact of future generations by the righteous. In Psalm 127, 128, and Deuteronomy 7:13, when referring to children as blessings, these texts use phrases that are quantitative in nature, such as “frutit” of the womb, or “arrows” in the quiver of a warrior, or olive plants “all around the table.”
These texts imply, that not only are children blessings, but the more the merrier!
The blessing here, is on having many children, not just having children. These texts take for granted the “qualitative” aspects of raising children. ”Of course, children are blessings…” the text says…
These texts assume that a righteous man will produce righteous generations of children, and mainly focus on the blessings of having many children. Multiplication. God wants the righteous to multiply in the world.
We get it all wrong, by trying to sound spiritual in saying that we have to manage the “fruit of the womb,” in order to produce quality children. That’s the main excuse, right? That we can’t produce quality children, unless we have less quantity of children.
In reality, aren’t we saying that we don’t fear the Lord to help us raise our children, or that we’re responsible for their salvation? Are we saying that raising godly children, and leading them to the Lord is up to us, and not up to God? When we treat the “fruit of the womb” as something left to us to manage in quantity, doesn’t this remove from our hearts and minds, the truth thtat God is in complete control of life, and every life is a gift… or should I say blessing?
Do we really need a proof text that says something like, “Thous shalt have as many children as thou can,” or “Thou shalt not use any form of contraception, nor avoid thy wife in the time of her fertility, so as to avoid her being with child.” Even if God had put these Scriptures in the Bible, would we not be tempted to do away with them somehow?
Instead, we have revealed for us how God views not only children, but the multiplication of one’s own family.
John 3:3-8 says,
3Jesus answered him, ”Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, ”Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Not only is physical birth up to God, but spirtual birth is too. Trying to manage your physical births, so that you can better manage a spiritual birth is futile. It’s up to God to give the increase. Spiritual birth is a gift, just as physical birth is a gift.
Hey, if nothing else, this could be a great reason for having many children.
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